[oliwaw]

But cost is also at issue. For cargo, it might make sense to take on 0.5-1.0% risk versus the massive investments necessary for the development of a space elevator.

And when we're talking about human spaceflight, consider the work SpaceX and Blue are putting into in-flight abort and propulsive landing - SpaceX's Crew Dragon should be much safer than the Space Shuttle, for example.

[planteen]

Yeah for cargo I agree. I was thinking more along the lines for human rating.

Propulsive landing helps for some failure modes but not all. Like I don't think it would have helped the CRS-7 failure had that been manned.

[hLHEDuYtSh]

It actually would have helped on CRS-7 -- That capsule was fine until it hit the water.

https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2015/07/saving-spaceship-dra...